AMS 345/CSE 355 (Spring, 2006) Joe Mitchell

COMPUTATIONAL GEOMETRY
Homework Set # 1

Due at the beginning of class on Wednesday, February 8, 2006.

Recommended Reading: O’Rourke, Chapter 1.
Reminder: In all of the exercises, be sure to give at least a brief explanation or justification
for each claim that you make.

(1). [10 points] Construct a simple polygon P and a placement of some number of guards in P
such that the guards see every point of the boundary, ∂P , but there is at least one point interior
to the region P that is not seen by any guard.
Try to make your example as “small” as possible (having the fewest number of vertices in P ).
Optional: Can you argue that your example is the smallest possible?
(2). [15 points] What is the answer to Klee’s question for clear visibility (Section 1.1.2) using vertex
guards? More specifically, let G00 (n) be the smallest number of vertex guards (guards stationed at
vertices) that suffice to clearly see every point in any polygon of n vertices. (Point guards are
guards who may stand at any point of P ; these are distinguished from vertex guards who may be
stationed only at vertices.) Try to determine G00 (n) exactly. Justify your answer as carefully as
you can.
(3). [10 points] O’Rourke, problem 3, section 1.2.5, page 15. Give examples and try to justify your
answers as convincingly as you can.
(4). [25 points] Suppose our goal in placing guards in a simple polygon P is to make sure that the
guards can communicate with each other by means of line-of-sight. Thus, we would like to make
sure that for any two guards, gi and gj , there is some way to send a message from gi to gj by
line-of-sight links: i.e., there should be a sequence, gi , gi1 , gi1 , . . . , gik , gj , so that gi sees gi1 , gi1 sees
gi2 , etc, and gik sees gj . (We use ordinary visibility here.) We say that a set of k guards that see
all of P and has this property forms a guard network of size k for P .
(a). [5 points] Suppose P is a simple polygon with guard number 2 (i.e., g(P ) = 2). Prove or
disprove: P can always be guarded by two guards that see one another (i.e., P has a guard network
of size 2).
(b). [10 points] Again suppose that P is a simple polygon with g(P ) = 2. Prove or disprove: P
always has a guard network of size at most 3.
(c). [10 points] Now suppose that P is a simple polygon with g(P ) = 3. Prove or disprove: P
always has a guard network of size at most 4.
(In each case, a single counterexample suffices to disprove the statement (if you can find a P and
a set of g(P ) guards, of your selection); to “prove” the statement, if true, give a short justification
to convince the reader of the truth of the claim.)
(5). [10 points] Give an example of a polygon P and a set of 5 guards that cover it such that
deletion of any one guard causes part of the gallery P to be unseen (i.e., the set of 5 guards is
minimal), but the guard number, g(P ), for P is less than 5 (g(P ) < 5).
(6). [30 points] For each of the simple polygons P below, do the following:
(a). [4 points] Show a set of diagonals that yield a triangulation of P .
(b). [8 points] Apply the method of Fisk’s proof to obtain a set of at most bn/3c (vertex)
guards. How many guards do you use?
(c). [10 points] By inspection, obtain the vertex guard number for P ; i.e., find the minimum
number of vertex guards necessary to guard the polygon. Justify your answer! In particular, give
an argument that fewer guards cannot suffice.
(d). [8 points] By inspection, obtain the point guard number for P , allowing guards to be placed
at any point (interior or boundary) of the polygon. Justify your answer! (Give an argument that
fewer guards cannot suffice.)
NOTE: In order to assist you in making drawings of the polygons, the course web site includes
larger images of the polygons, if you wish to print and use those (or use them electronically).

Polygon P1

Polygon P2

OPTIONAL CHALLENGE PROBLEM: (I will often ask “research” questions, some of

which I have not yet solved myself, but I want to provoke you to try to solve. You can obtain an
(unspecified) number of extra credit points for seriously attempting (and ideally solving!) these
questions. They have no particular due date, but must be turned in by the last day of class if you
want to get credit.)
Suppose that guards can “see around corners” in the following sense: A guard at point p ∈ P
can periscope see a point q ∈ P if and only if there is some point r ∈ P such that p sees r and r sees
q (under the usual notion of visibility). (In particular, this means that if p sees q, then p periscope
sees q, since we can pick r = p.) Let g 000 (P ) denote the periscope guard number of polygon P , which
is the smallest number of guards required to periscope see all of P (boundary and interior). Let
G000 (n) = maxP :|P |=n g 000 (P ). An “Art Gallery Theorem” for periscope visibility would determine
G000 (n) exactly. Can you discover and prove such a theorem?